WOMEN CAN BE PRIESTS

The teaching authority and
slavery

The local Council at Gangra in Asia Minor
excommunicates anyone encouraging a slave to despise his master or withdraw
from his service. (Became part of Church Law from the 13th
century).

354-430 AD

St. Augustine teaches that the institution of
slavery derives from God and is beneficial to slaves and masters. (Quoted by
many later Popes as proof of "Tradition".

650 AD

Pope Martin I condemns people who teach slaves
about freedom or who encourage them to escape.

1089 AD

The Synod of Melfi under Pope Urban II imposed
slavery on the wives of priests. (Became part of Church Law from the
13th century).

1179 AD

The Third Lateran Council imposed slavery on those
helping the Saracens.

1226 AD

The legitimacy of slavery is incorporated in the
Corpus Iuris Canonici, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX which remained
official law of the Church until 1913. Canon lawyers worked out four just
titles for holding slaves: slaves captured in war, persons condemned to slavery
for a crime; persons selling themselves into slavery, including a father
selling his child; children of a mother who is a slave.

1224-1274 AD

St.Thomas Aquinas defends slavery as instituted by
God in punishment for sin, and justified as being part of the right of
nations and natural law. Children of a slave mother are rightly slaves
even though they have not committed personal sin! (Quoted by many later
Popes).

1435 AD

Pope Eugenius IV condemns the indiscriminate
enslavement of natives in the Canary Islands, but does not condemn slavery as
such.

1454 AD

Through the bull Romanus Pontifex, Pope
Nicholas V authorises the king of Portugal to enslave all the Saracen and pagan
peoples his armies may conquer.

1493 AD

Pope Alexander VI authorises the King of Spain to
enslave non-Christians of the Americas who are at war with Christian
powers.

1537 AD

Pope Paul III condemns the indiscriminate
enslavement of Indians in South America.

1548 AD

The same Pope Paul III confirms the right of clergy
and laity to own slaves.

1639 AD

Pope Urban VIII denounces the indiscriminate
enslavement of Indians in South America, without denying the four just
titles for owning slaves.

1741 AD

Pope Benedict XIV condemns the indiscriminate
enslavement of natives in Brazil, but does not denounce slavery as such, nor
the importation of slaves from Africa.

1839 AD

Pope Gregory XVI condemns the international negro
slave trade, but does not question slavery as such, nor the domestic slave
trade.

1866 AD

The Holy Office in an instruction signed by Pope
Pius IX declares: Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential
nature, is not at all contary to the natural and divine law, and there can be
several just titles of slavery, and these are referred to by approved
theologians and commentators of the sacred canons It is not contrary to
the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or
given".

The turn around

1888 AD

Pope Leo III condemns slavery in more general
terms, and supports the anti-slavery movement.

1918 AD

The new Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope
Benedictus XV condemns selling any person as a slave. (There is no
condemnation of owning slaves, however).

1965 AD

The Second Vatican Council defends basic
human rights and denounces all violations of human integrity, including slavery
(Gaudium et Spes, no 27,29,67).